Andrew Gates's Blog, page 14

I’ve Finished! (Again, Again)

“Good news, everyone!” – Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth

Today at 4:03 pm, I put the final touches on my rough draft of the upcoming book, Veznek, the third book in the Color of Water and Sky series.

I know I’ve said this before, but man, what an ending.

This is easily my favorite ending to any book I’ve ever written. It’s all action all the time and has you sitting at the edge of your seat. Astute science-fiction filmgoers may notice that I drew some inspiration from the ending of a movie I enjoy, but I’ve added a number of changes to it, making it very unique in its own way.

Now for the interesting part: the numbers. With each of my books, the word count has gone down more and more every time. For example, my initial rough draft for Iris came in at 170,812 words and 305 pages. Kholvaria‘s first draft came in in at 137,068 words and 246 pages. Veznek, being easily the shortest of the bunch, comes in at 117,632 words and 216 pages.

What a huge jump!

As I go through and edit, I will find some details to cut or add, therefore changing these numbers. With Iris, the word count dropped after the initial edit. With Kholvaria, it went up. I suspect, and hope, it will go up for Veznek as well. But only time will tell.

The next thing you’re probably wondering is: when is the release date?

I am not sure, but rest assured, the entire project is ahead of schedule, so I can only guess it will be soon. My guess, which is NOT an official announcement is… March 2018.

Soon the editing process will begin, then some more work on my now-delayed secret project. I do not expect writing to start on the fourth book, Hive, anytime soon. Hive, by the way, is going to be crazy and long and I’m so excited to start working on it.

Finally, in more pressing news, please pre-order Cassidy now on Kindle! It’s available for pre-order. Get your copy set today! Click here: LINK

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Cassidy Digital Copy Finalized + Veznek Near Completion

Hello all!

Cassidy‘s digital KDP upload has been finalized, thanks to my formatter, Mary Crawford. If you don’t know Mary, she’s an excellent author working in the romance genre. She’s been writing for a long time and has put out more books than I can count! You can visit her Amazon author page here: LINK.

Mary Crawford has helped format all of my books for Kindle, from Iris to Kholvaria to Cassidy. As you can tell, her work is great! The book looks way better than anything I would be able to put together on my own. I would say it even looks better than a number of traditionally-published books.

All that remains now is to finalize the paperback edition. I’ve already gone through a rough version of the paperback and marked issues I saw, then went back and corrected them. Now I just have to see it in print to make sure my changes look good. The new version of the paperback is in the mail. I’m just waiting for it to arrive. All in all, I predict that the paperback editions should be finalized within the week. I will put them up for sale as soon as I get my copy and deem them ready.

In other news, Veznek‘s rough draft is nearly finished! The finale is really exciting. I even decided half-way through writing the last chapter to split the last chapter into three chapters. So now the finale is even longer than before! I’m really excited about this finale. I think it is easily the most exciting conclusion to any of my books yet.

In other, other news, my secret project I eluded to a few weeks back has been delayed. More news on my secret project probably won’t come until around December or January. I apologize for the delay, and I am not happy about it. Stay tuned for more information.

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Cassidy Advertisements Are Live

Ads have officially begun! In preparation for Cassidy‘s upcoming release, I bought several ads on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve played around with ads before and written about some of my experiences here, but this time I’m going cheaper and, as a result, broader. So this is another experiment in itself.

In the past, I have experimented with targeted advertising, that is, advertising geared toward a very niche or specific group (example: people who like books and Kindle and science-fiction and oceans). That way I know my ad is reaching people who would be interested in the product. These ads are expensive, but worth it, especially because the cost per click can be low if you really nail the right group (which is something I was still trying to work on). I have also only worked with Facebook and Amazon in the past, not Twitter.

This time, I’m going broad. I’m advertising to people who like books and that’s it. Why? Well, a few reasons. For one thing, I want to try something new and see how this goes. For another reason, it’s actually way cheaper and I put more ads out there. Granted, those ads don’t make as much of an impact per-person, but it’ll still do something. I’m also doing ads on Facebook and Twitter this time, not Amazon.

I have yet to determine which ad type will be a better deal. I may come to learn that a combination of the two methods is preferred.

I am still new to this game and have yet to determine my read-through rate, that is, how many people who read book 1 end up reading book 2. For me to effectively price my ads, I really need to gather that information first. That’s why I’m still taking everything slowly.

If you take a look at the whole series, you can see the  cumulative RT (read-through). It’s easy to determine this once you have the sales, which again, I’m still working on, so right now I’m just estimating it all. At the end of the month, if you look at all the sales of the last book in the series, and divide it by the sales of the first book in the series, then that’s the cumulative RT. So if I sold 21 copies of book one and let’s say my four-part series is complete and I sell 13 copies of book 4, then 13/21 = 0.619, meaning I have roughly a 62% read through.

The highest drop off will most likely come between books 1 and 2. People will start the first one but decide not to finish it or continue with the series. But if they’ve made it to book 2, readers are more likely to continue to buy subsequent books. So the RT increases, ideally, from book to book.

Again with this four-part series, if I am  advertising book 1, I want to know how many sales of book one will lead to sales of book 2, 3, 4… I do that math and let’s say I figure out that  for each sale of book 1, I make $6.00 when you factor in the likely hood that I will sell the others.

For every 20-40 or so clicks on an online advertisement, I may only get one sale. This can vary wildly, of course, and relies heavily on the effectivity of the ad, which is something I am still working on. Assuming I make one sale for every 30 clicks in a Facebook ad, that means the highest cost per click I can tolerate can tolerate is $6.00 / 30 = $0.20. So if my cost per click is higher than that, I’m losing money.

This game of math is something I’m still figuring out, as you can see, and experimenting with all the time. I’m sure the more I do it, the more I will master it. I am also fully aware that the more books I get out in the series, it become more worthwhile to spend all this money on adverting. (Right now it isn’t really worth it because I only have two books out).

Hopefully this ad push will generate some more pre-orders. Last I checked, Cassidy is still at a whopping zero pre-orders, which is kind of a bummer.

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Cassidy Beta Copies In

Beta copies are in for the upcoming book, Cassidy. It’s exciting to a have a physical copy ready. It’s considerably thinner than previous books in the series, but still has that awesome “Color of Water and Sky” feel to it.

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Just a quick scan and I’ve already noticed a LOT of issues right off the bat. It’s never fun to find problems, but that’s exactly why we print beta copies ahead of time before going to market.

Most of the issues I’ve discovered already are formatting issues brought about by incorrect font. In other words, the font I uploaded is not the font the publisher printed. The change in font means certain pages are formatted differently. The result: some titles looking terrible or not fitting on the line.

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So it looks like I have some work cut out for me, but again, that’s why we do this. The official release date for Cassidy is not until October 15th, so there’s still a whole month to prepare. I can confidently say one month is more than enough time to get ready.

On that note, you can still pre-order your book ahead of time on the Kindle store. I still have a whopping zero pre-orders, so you have the chance to be the first!

To pre-order your copy of Cassidy for Kindle, click here:

https://www.amazon.com/Cassidy-Color-Water-Sky-Novel-ebook/dp/B075GRDTGH/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Veznek Rough Draft Near Completion

Holy smokes, Batman! Where did the time go? I stopped working on Veznek for awhile, then came back to it and decided to write three chapters in a day. And if you know my chapters, you know they aren’t short.

Needless to say, I’ve unexpectedly made a whole lot of progress in a short amount of time.

Veznek, the third book in the Color of Water and Sky series, is now only two chapters away from completion. That’s right: just two chapters. I’m mid-way through what is a four-chapter finale, easily the longest climax to any of the books in the series thus far. There’s action on land, in space and in the ocean. It’s a big-scale finale with lots of moving parts and *spoiler alert* lots of characters biting the bullet.

The finale draws a lot of inspiration from some of my favorite science-fiction stories including some popular blockbuster movies. It moves fast and it’s a blast to write. Just thinking about some of the scenes again gets me excited.

The current rough draft, still two chapters short, is 184 pages long and has a word-count of 99,221 words. When finished, I expect it will come out closer to about 120,000 words, making it, surprisingly, the shortest in the series so far. We shall see what the final page  and word count comes out to, but as of now I predict that this shall be the shortest book of the four.

Speaking of the fourth book, as I near the end of Veznek, I begin to think more and more of my plans for the fourth and final book in the series, Hive. Herein lies the problem. The more and more I think about my plans for Hive, the more that story grows and grows. If I actually end up writing the story I currently have mapped out in my head, Hive may grow to be the longest book in the series, even surpassing Iris. We’ll see what happens there. Only time will tell if I continue to grow the story. Hopefully I’ll be able to trim some stuff down.

In other, other news, Cassidy is currently available for pre-order on Kindle! I have had a whopping ZERO pre-orders so far, so this is your chance to be the first! I’m really excited about this story. It’s a fast read and gets you caught up on the happenings of some side characters we’ve only briefly encountered in the main series so far. It also has some pretty cool cover art, if I do say so myself.

You can pre-order your copy of Cassidy right here: http://tinyurl.com/yarrq83a

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Lastly, for those of you interested in my magazine stories, I have a new article up on the Run Washington website. You can check out my newest piece here: http://tinyurl.com/ychlv4qx

That’s all for now! Expect a lot of news on both Cassidy and Veznek coming soon!

Cassidy Cover Reveal + Release Date Announced

There’s big news in the world of The Color of Water and Sky. The upcoming spinoff novel, Cassidy, is nearing completion. The cover art has been completed and it looks great!

Check out the images below:

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The juxtaposition of orange and blue is visually very stunning. We also see a sky with fireballs raining down and a world of ocean below. The juxtaposition of fire and water is also really cool. It was also great to sneak in that submarine image I had commissioned from another artist. The book is named after the submarine, after all. So it only makes sense to feature it.

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Here you can see the full cover for the paperback, front and back. Since this book is considerably shorter than others in the series, the spine was formatted a bit differently. Still, I think it works. Visually, this looks really cool.

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Above, you can see the piece of art I originally had done from a different artist earlier in the year. As you can tell, some elements were borrowed and integrated with the new cover, namely the submarine.

Lastly, and most importantly, the release date:

Cassidy will be released on Amazon.com on October 15th, 2017.

Cassidy – Potential Back Cover Blurb

Cassidy is nearing completion – much faster than originally anticipated! (It helps that the book is 1/3 the length of the others) Cover art will be revealed soon in the upcoming days. It looks great and I can’t wait to show you guys.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a potential back cover blurb. In the past, you fans have helped edit these blurbs to what they are today. Your help has been monumental. If you have any edits, please feel free to leave a comment.

 

Captain Sara Gessetti and Lieutenant Damien Saljov are dead… or so the world believed.

After a deadly attack from an unknown enemy, Gessetti and Saljov are separated from the Cassidy X20 experimental submarine and left to drown in the depths of the Atlantic.

Cut off from society, from technology, even from each other, both pilots are believed dead, but both are very much alive.

Follow along with Gessetti and Saljov as they struggle to survive in this harsh new world, where danger lurks around every corner.

From the pages of The Color of Water and Sky, this official spinoff story is set during the time of books 1-3 in the series.

How to Boost Book Sales in Slow Seasons

The general rule for indie authors is: publish often. With each new book release, there’s a considerable uptick in sales, not just for the new book, but for others in the series. If an author can manage to stay relevant in Amazon’s algorithm, that is, stay high on author or genre rankings, they can capitalize on that success for longer.

Simply put: consistent releases lead to consistent sales. Ultimately, if you want to make money as an author, this is what you have to do.

But what about those long stretches of time when authors are unable to release fast enough?

I am currently going through a period like that. My latest release was months ago. With two completed novels in the editing stage and three stories in the writing stage, I have a lot in the pipeline, but nothing coming out just now. Hopefully I can get two releases in the next couple of months – and ideally two more after that before 2017 ends, but that’s still a ways off.

The question is: how do I make money now?

Small pushes help. Getting indie reviewers or bloggers to share something about the book never hurts. It’ll give you a little push, but bloggers may not always make their push on a timetable that works to your benefit. Sometimes it takes bloggers months to get to you, if even at all.

Freelance writing also provides a small boost. You won’t get rich from freelancing – and often these are one-time paid gigs (rather than pay for every unit sold, like books), but it’ll help give you a bit more cash for the time-being. Often freelance writing is easy and pays promptly. For more information on that, I wrote a brief piece about magazine writing here on this blog: HOW TO WRITE FOR MAGAZINES AND GET PAID.

Another great trick is to get your work in collected editions. If you can get your books into boxes sets or collections, you can get a huge boost, not just from direct sales of the collection, but from additional exposure to your work. Unfortunately, these opportunities do not always arise. Finding other authors to join in a boxed set is heavily dependent on your own ability to network with other writers and find those opportunities, which may or may not even be available at that time.

So what works best?

The real trick, from my experience, is in short sales. Put your book out there for $0.99 or even free for a brief time like a weekend, a three day period, or a holiday. Small price reductions or free releases will increase your sales by a huge margin in a short period of time.

Granted, you won’t make any money directly from putting your book out there for free. But if you have series, putting out the first book for free is a great way to sell the second. In fact, many authors put their first books out for $0.99 for that exact reason. It’s the same reason I permanently have my preview collection available for free on Smashwords. Free stuff sells paid stuff. It’s as easy as that.

Sites like BKnights or, to an extent, Thunderclap or Headtalker, are a great way to promote these sales (especially BKnights). Thunderclap and Headtalker are a bit more difficult, as a lot of the promo work relies on you and your networking efforts, whereas BKnights does most of the work for you for a low price.

Coupling a promo site like the ones listed above with a price reduction, even for a brief time, can give you a boost that may last several days longer than the sale itself. It won’t get you into new release territory. Nothing will. New releases are still the best way for authors to make money. But sales like these are better than nothing, especially in long stretches of “dead zone”.

 

Writing Three Stories at Once

It’s been awhile since I’ve given any news on the progress of Veznek. I know many of you are clamoring for details. I’ve had people message me with requests to proof read it, though my draft is not even fished. Many of you are probably wondering the reason you haven’t heard much. Quite simply: I’m working on three stories at the same time, so my progress has slowed considerably.

Veznek is actually on the back-burner for now, though I did manage to write another chapter yesterday. The book is great! Once again, it has a very different tone from what came before it. Where Iris was a long drawn-out claustrophobic mystery and Kholvaria was more of a straight up action/survival story, Veznek is a Kholvari-based political conspiracy thriller.

That’s right: Veznek is Kholvari-based. By that, I mean the Kholvari take the main stage and the humans become secondary. That fact alone dramatically changes the feel of the book and makes it stand out from the others.

Veznek also stands out in that every character is in a different place and on their own individual adventure. For that reason, the plot bounces around a lot depending on who you are following in that chapter (similar to A Song of Ice and Fire or the Lord of the Rings). Still, it’s a necessary book, as it puts all the main players in their proper starting-points for the finale in book 4 – tentatively titled Hive.

Hive is going to be awesome, by the way.

All in all, I’ve written 17 chapters in what I plan to be a 23 chapter book. With six chapters to go at the pace I’ve been writing lately, I don’t expect the draft to be finished anytime soon, though it could certainly happen by the end of the year.

Which brings me to my main point: If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering what the other two projects are that have taken up so much of my time.

One project I already eluded to in an earlier post. I’m working on a roughly 20K-word story which will (hopefully) be featured in a collection of comedy short stories. This is my first time writing a comedy piece and I honestly think it’s pretty funny. It spoofs Star Wars in many ways. The idea is this: what are the regular guys up to day-to-day in the Death Star? I’m not talking about the Emperor or Darth Vader or the generals. I’m talking about the guys who stand in line for hours just to wait and salute as the Emperor comes out of his shuttle, or the guy that works at the bar (you know there must be a bar in that huge space station somewhere). Also: how do people date in the Death Star? Is there a dating service? These are the pressing stories that need to be told.

More updates on that as I have them.

The second project I’m working on is a secret… for now, but I can tell you it has a pretty big name in the sci-fi genre attached to it. I can also tell you it will be a full-length story, not a short story. I wish I could tell you more. I think a lot fans of Iris and Kholvaria will like it a lot. I’m excited to reveal more news on that secret project – hopefully soon.

Again, more updates on that as I have them.

The good news is that I’m not currently working on any magazine stories at the moment, so in a sense, I am freed up a bit that way. On the other hand, I have noticed that when I don’t write magazine stories, I make up for that by writing more of these blog posts. So I guess it balances out.

Lastly, summer is almost over. Soon everyone will be heading back to school. Enjoy the last days of summer!

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How to Write for Magazines and Get Paid

Yesterday I got $500 richer.

It was a warm August day. I was driving to the county fair and stopped along the way at my local bank. I’d just received a check in the mail only a day earlier and was eager to make a deposit. That check was worth $500 – and I earned it by writing a six-page piece for a local publication. It could not have been easier.

For me, this is nothing new. For those of you who follow my blog regularly, you know that I briefly addressed my experience with magazine writing in my previous post. Since posting that entry, I’ve had a few people asking me about how I got into magazine writing, so I figured I’d expand it to a longer piece.

Magazine writing is a great side-gig for those people searching for extra income. For those seeking to make money full-time from magazines, don’t worry! Many people make  a living from writing for publications, though you’ll have to work for it like anything else.

So how much can you make, exactly? Well, like so much in freelance writing, your pay can vary considerably across sources. Some magazines pay by the word – as little as one cent per word, others much higher at around $2.00 per word. Some magazines offer a flat fee as opposed to a “pay-per-word”. For example, I’ve been paid $200, $250, even most recently $500 for work on magazines as flat fees, regardless of the word count.

But how to get started? How to find these magazines?

For many people interested in working in magazine writing, the first thing on a lot of people’s list is to google search phrases like “get paid to write” or “writing jobs”. While there seem to be lots of results, most of these searches will lead you to what I’m going to call “black hole sites”, that means, places that suck you in and get you nowhere. Those sites include places like OnlineWritingJobs.com or freelancewriting.com – there are lots of sites like these. Most of these sites require you to pay a subscription fee just to access the site and most lead you to dead-ends not worth the cost.

That brings me to tip #1 – you shouldn’t need to pay a subscription fee to find a job. Whether for a writing job or a job in any other field, if you have to pay to find a job, you’re getting ripped off. People in all industries are searching for talent. If you have what it takes, they’ll bring you in – no fee required.

So if you ignore the writing sites, what next? Where to turn?

Unfortunately there is no magic site that will instantly grant you the jobs you seek. This is something I wish I’d learned earlier in my writing career. The process of finding writing jobs, especially in magazines, is slow.

Step One is to read magazines. If you want to write for a magazine, you should get a feel for the publication and its target audience. Magazines, more than websites or newspapers, are incredibly niche. That means understanding the specific niche is imperative. For example, if I know nothing about boats, I have no business even considering writing for a boat magazine. But let’s say I have a big interest in baseball, then looking into a baseball magazine makes sense. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many “outsiders” think they can write in a niche subject and fail.

Step Two is to contact the editor of the magazine. Pitch them a story, share something you’ve written, and be sure to tell them that you’re a big fan (it helps if you actually are!). Most magazines will give out the editor’s contact info or even have a specific section on their website for submissions. Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear back. Like any job, sometimes there’s just no room for new faces. It doesn’t always mean you’re not qualified. Also don’t be surprised if you have to submit a sample piece. It helps to show them a writing sample or even a pre-written story for the magazine.

My first experience with magazine writing started almost a year ago now. I sent an email to the editor of a local publication, Run Washington Magazine, a publication that I read quite frequently. I sent an email to the editor asking if he had any opportunities for contributors. He answered that yes, he did. He asked for a writing sample, so I sent him a sample of a paper I had written about the movie industry (a topic completely unrelated to running – in hindsight, maybe not the best idea). He agreed to meet with me only a few days later.

Let’s say this happens to you. Someone bites – you get a job! Great! Don’t let them down. This next part is important. Now you have to put together a solid piece.

My first story writing for a magazine was not a story of my choice. The editor already had a story in mind – an interesting story, mind you, but not one of my own inception. That brings me to tip #2 – don’t expect every story you write to be 100% your own.

After writing my first piece, I followed up with the editor. I wanted to make sure he remembered me the next time a new issue came out. That brings me to tip #3 – make sure to stay in contact, even when you’re not working on a story. By staying in contact, I was able to write a story for the next issue. This time it was a story of my own idea, which goes to show you that with a bit of patience, you’ll eventually get more freedom to write what you want to write.

In order to put together a solid original magazine piece, you’ll have to start by doing research. Make sure to research your idea and make sure it hasn’t been done before. Once you are convinced the idea is good, next comes the hard part: find people to interview.

Finding sources to interview is not easy. This is, by far, the most difficult part of magazine writing. Make calls to schools, to businesses, to anyone who may know the contacts. Check in on Facebook groups, contact your friends, find emails, phone numbers, whatever you can. This is the tough detective-style portion of the job. It isn’t easy. It requires patience. Lots of leads will fall through. Lots of people won’t want to talk to you. But keep going. If you can make it through this part, you can make it to the end.

Once you have your sources, the next step is to interview them. Phone calls work fine. No need to meet in person (unless you really want to). Make sure to transcribe the interviews so you can refer back to the exact wording later. The last thing you want to do is misquote a source.

From here on out, you can finally put your writing skills to the test. Put together a catchy, engaging story. Make sure to fit it in the designated word count and ALWAYS remember the magazine’s niche. That should be the focus of your story no matter what.

Once you submit your finished draft, don’t get worried if the editor makes changes to what you wrote. This is normal. And remember – FOLLOW UP after the story is written. This will lead to your next article.

Good luck to anyone who wants to try their hand in this fun, exciting job.